the problematics of motherhood in twentieth century women's fiction

e produced, patriarchal thought has ordered women to
restrlct themselves to motherhood
4
Hartmann's defrnltion of
'patrrarchy' includes such a systematic manlpulat~on of
women's reproduction
Accord~ng to Hartmann, patriarchy 1s
"a hierarchical set of soclal relations among men, whlcn has
a materlal base In men's control of women's labor power and
restrlctlon of women's sexuality, either cowards
reproductive purposes or towards satrsfylng the needs of
men" lclted In Gordon 1990 91
Nancy Chodorow, In her book.
The Reproductzon of Mothering, argues char motherrng was
reproduced, both at the level of soclal organlzatlon and at
the level of lnd~vlduai development by a complex system that
depended upon the famlly for ~ rs contmulty
She polncs to
the family as the lnstltutzon wlthln whlch the economlc and
social requirements of the whole soclety are met by meacs of
the creatlon of approprzare personality structures for the
roles to be played wlthin 1t
1.1.6. Such an ~nstltutlonailzat~on of famliy strucr\lres
and the role of women In them prompted Slmone de Beauvolr to
state In her book, The Second Sex, that one is not born, but
rather, one becomes a woman - thus formulating the
dlstlnctlon between sex and gender, and suggesting that
gender is an aspect of ldentrty gradually acqulred
Thls
distinction further discredits the notlon that anatomy 1s
destlny, 'sex' being the zw~arlant, anatomically disanct